Love Give Forgive
by Stephanie Loss
Summary: Summary: The First Slayer's words from "Intervention" drives Buffy to seek out Angel and fix her emotional back from the dead problems. Post Buffy/Spike Sex stuff, Post Connor being born, Pre Holtz insanity stuff
1. Author's Note Please help!

Author's note: First of all, thank you all! The reviews have been wonderful and have made me feel soo much better about my writing.   
  
No, there will be no Cordy/Angel thing.. except maybe Buffy noticing the.. whatever between them that Fred let Angel think existed, and Angel having to come to terms with exactly what he feels. If you read my other stories, you'll know how this will end up.   
  
For everyone clamoring for me to write more, I need your help. For the end of the second part, I was able to use the "IOHEFY" quote to tie in the first portion for the equation, Love. I would like to do the same for "Give" and "Forgive."  
  
So, if anyone has an idea of a quote for those two, please let me know! Leave me a review or e-mail me at lurking_angel@yahoo.com  
  
THANK YOU!  
  
Stephanie Loss 


	2. Love, Give, Forgive 1 of ?

Title: Love... Give... Forgive (1-?)

Spoiler Warning: Buffy season six, Angel season three... Wreaked on Buffy and Dad on Angel. Just to remind, Wreaked is after Smashed where there was the Buffy/Spike building falling down thing that we've all repressed since we are good little BA shippers...

Summary: The First Slayer's words from "Intervention" drive Buffy to seek out Angel and fix her emotional back from the dead problems.

Disclaimer: Jossy Whedon is the all mighty Hell God that even Glory would bow to (and with whom she would probably outrightly flirt). So, of course, I bow to his power and will. He owns these characters; I wouldn't want to own them. I just like playing with them. Any qualms can be taken up with Jossy, Mutant Enemy, and 20th Century FOX. The idea, of course, is my brainchild and no one elses! Even though, if Joss was as all mighty as I say, HE'D FIGURE IT OUT!

Feedback: PLEASE! I need the encouragement to keep working on this thing!

Since my first posting, I've done some rewriting. I've changed both the Buffy and Angel spring off episodes. They might change again, depending what I get after DVD watchage.

Right hook.

Snap kick.

Left palm strike.

Duck and kick again.

Fighting was the only time when she felt somewhat normal, somewhat alive.

Spin kick.

Side kick.

Buffy went to punch the vampire again, but he was ready. He hooked his arm around hers, and flipped her to the ground. She was a little slow on removing the stake from the small of her back.

The vampire flipped her onto her back. She couldn't quite get the stake to a slayable position. As the vampire leaned forward, tilting her neck up for a better angle, he found the tip of the stake. As he adjusted his body weight, to avoid the stake, his palm slipped on a leaf. He fell, impaling himself on the stake held in Buffy's limp grasp.

She stared up into the sky. After the ashes cleared, she took a deep breath. Tears started sloping down her cheeks as she broke down.

"Why can't you kill me?" She screamed. The heavens that let her be cast out didn't respond to her cries. "I want to go back!" The tears came harder as she struggled to her knees. "Why won't you let me?"

By the time she left the cemetery, she was back to her emotionally dead self.

Her dreams were dark that night.

She remembered the night well. She was dreaming of the night she called for a Spirit Guide, and the First Slayer appeared. It was a dream she had been having often since she… came back. She sat before a fire, and across from the flames, she was there. And, as always, the Slayer's words echoed through her dream.

"You think you're losing your ability to love. You're afraid that being the Slayer means losing your humanity. You are full of love. You love with all of your soul. It's brighter than the fire ... blinding. That's why you pull away from it."

"I'm full of love? I'm not losing it?"

"Only if you reject it. Love is pain, and the Slayer forges strength from pain. Love ... give ... forgive. Risk the pain. It is your nature. Love will bring you to your gift."

It was easy, at the time, to think her words referred only to saving Dawn. Yet, when she was pulled back from... where she was, lacking almost everything that made her _her_, she started wondering if the First Slayer's words had more meaning than she had first guessed.

"Love is pain, and the Slayer forges strength from pain. Love ... give ... forgive. Risk the pain. It is your nature. Love will bring you to your gift."

Once again, it would easy to believe her Spirit Guide meant she should forgive Riley for his misguided transgressions, or Spike for abusing her grief and loneliness, his past and current evil, but she knew with a certainty that mirrored the moment she knew she could save both Dawn and the rest of the world, that the Spirit Guide meant that she had to finally forgive Angel for leaving her, for complicating the one thing in her life that she could truly understand.

It was something she still couldn't forgive him for, and wondered if she ever could.

"Love is pain, and the Slayer forges strength from pain."

With Riley, she felt safe, she felt normal, and she felt that she could live without him. Angel, Angel made her feel. He made her cry. He didn't try to hide her from all the pain in the world, he just offered a shoulder to cry on when it became too much, a hand to hold in the darkness. She felt stronger just being with him. He truly was a bodyguard fit for a Slayer. He was, is, her Angel.

"That would be anger you're feeling."

"What?"

"You feel it, right? How the anger gives you fire? A Slayer needs that."

How could she have forgotten her conversation with Kendra? Had she changed that much since Angel left her that she no longer even used her emotions the way she used to? Once again, anger at Angel rose inside her, even in her dream. He had done this to her. When he left, he broke so many things in her. She couldn't even grieve for her mother, because if she had let go and cried, he wouldn't have been there to help her stop. As suddenly as the anger hit, it disappeared.

He had been there for her. When Joyce had died, he was here. He mysteriously appeared while she was standing watch over her mother's grave, and slipped his hand into hers. He had always done what he thought she had needed, what he thought would work out better for her in the end. He had come to her senior prom, he had given her that last non-goodbye, where they both comforted themselves with the fact that the other made it out of the battle that followed her high school graduation, and survived the explosion that took out Sunnydale High and the demonized Mayor. He had always been there for her. He loved her. And, yes, she still loved him. She would always love him.

Across the fire, the dream Spirit Guide slowly nodded.

She had to see him again. She had to reconfirm her feelings for him, apologize for the way she'd been treating him since he left her, and, try to forgive him. She had to. She wanted to feel again, she needed to feel again.


	3. Love Give, Forgive 2 of ?

Once again, Buffy pondered the stupidity of it all. Being around Angel was dangerous. They proved it every time they were together. She could carry on a conversation with him, a serious pointed conversation, and still have very little on her mind other than touching him, kissing him….

She gave up and let her mind drift on that subject for a long moment, remembering him, and the moments, real, and created, they shared. Outside the window of the bus, the "Now Leaving Sunnydale" sign flew by, and Buffy jerked her mind back to the present and wondered if she should feel guilty for leaving like she did.

For the first time in ages, she didn't have a "big bad" hounding all her time and energy. Glory was gone, and Adam was spare parts. She shouldn't be gone long, and it wasn't like she was leaving the people she cared about in any sort of danger. There was the money thing, but Anya would there to deal with it. Spike's face floated to the forefront of her mind, and she shoved it away visciously.

She shook her head; she didn't even know what she was going to L.A. for exactly, how could she know how long she'd be gone? All she was going on was her dream, and her need to see him again.

She drew her attention back to the fleeting landscape. Around four years ago, she took this drive in a bus much like the one she rode now, feeling just as dead and pitiful then as she did now. Things change but always stay the same. That was the irony of life. She ran away four years ago because she 'killed' Angel and couldn't deal. She was running away now cause she died and couldn't deal.

And, once again, the fear returned. Things had been different between them, (but wasn't that usual between them) when they had met after she came back. The passions were there, but so was fear. His fear of losing control of his demon, her fear of getting him back just to lose him again.

What if he had decided that he didn't need her love? What if he had found someone to move on to, someone with whom his precious and wonderful soul would be safe.

What if once again they re-lived that night of the Sadie Hawkins's dance?

"Then tell me you don't love me! Say it!"

"Is that what you need to hear? Will that help? I don't. I don't. Now let me go."

"No. A person doesn't just wake up and stop loving somebody! Love is forever."

She was comforted as James' words from her mouth repeated in her mind. "Love is forever." "Love is forever."

Love.


	4. Love, Give, Forgive 3 of ?

Buffy stared up at the entrance to the Hyperion Hotel. Even from outside, she could feel him and he felt like all the best things in the world. Mr. Gordo, a good slay after a "break," Angel's lips brushing against hers, his hand seeking out hers… this was not going to help.

Think happy non-sexual thoughts, she thought, and don't think about how he makes your knees melt, or how you miss sleeping next to him, in his arms. She sighed. This is going nowhere. She took a moment to clear her mind using all the techniques she had been using in her training.

She could handle this.

Buffy looked up at the rather imposing hotel.

She couldn't handle this.

While she stood outside the open gates, one of the doors to the hotel opened. Buffy almost smiled at the look of surprise on Cordelia's face.

"You are here!"

"Hi Cordelia."

Cordy opened her mouth, shut it, then tried again. "He said you should come in."

As she reached the door, Cor put a hand on Buffy's shoulder. "Just so you know, since you didn't bother calling before you came, this isn't a good time. You might be able to pull him through the worst of this, but I swear on every Neiman Marcus every built that if you leave him in more pieces than he already is, I will make you suffer as badly as him. Oh," she added as an afterthought, in a tone Buffy couldn't quite place, "Nice hair."

Buffy was confused now than before she left. What was Angel going through? And what had happened to the spoiled brat she once knew as Cordelia Chase?

She entered into the hotel, marveling how her lov… ex could have come across something like this. He'd moved up for the little office building with the basement lair that previously housed Angel Investigations. Although, she mildly thought, it wasn't very different from the mansion back home. Her mind flashed to moments spent in that mansion as her heart tightened.

At that moment, Angel stepped into view. Her heart tightened even more. Then, she saw his face, felt the calm he always imbued her with, and fell into his waiting arms. It wasn't time to take noticed of his particularly haunted look, the fading marks of a not-so-past battle. These she took in as he took her into his arms.

He had felt her outside, or he thought he had. He thought he did. The sense of her in his head was more diminished even then it had been in that first meeting since her… return. With her wrapped in his arms, he could feel pain and sadness radiating from her. His hand lazed up from her lower back to the top of her head.

He silently mourned the loss of her golden tresses. It was one side effect of being dead that he had selfishly luxuriated in during their brief meeting. He was reminded during that meeting, of the first time he saw her, how her long golden blonde hair added such innocence to her. The length was gone now, cut far shorter than anything he had seen his love sport before. He dropped a kiss onto her forehead and leaned back to take in the view of heaven. Her hair framed her face now, adding the years to her face that were written on her soul.

He delicately wrapped his finger around a wisp of the sunshine that haloed his angel. He leaned closer, touching his forehead to hers. "I like your hair."

He would give everything in heaven and hell to always see that smile on her lips.


End file.
